CHAPTER TEN
Emma
“I’m sorry, miss,” the secretary told me. “Mr. Lambert’s instructions were clear. I can’t let you in there.”
I stared down the secretary, a woman not more than a few years older than me. She blinked up at me, her false eyelashes sweeping her high cheekbones. She was pretty. I wondered if Niall had ever fucked her.
“It’s an emergency,” I stressed.
“I’m sorry,” she tartly said.
I sighed and stepped away. “Fine.” I didn’t want to be a bitch to the girl, and clearly she wasn’t going to bend. If I wanted to get in to see Niall, I needed to find another way.
Without another look at her, I stomped around the corner and pressed myself against the wall to hide between the giant ferns. Deep breath in. Deep breath out.
I still couldn’t believe it. Although I’d wondered if I would hear from Niall after our weekend together, the text I’d gotten that morning had been the very last thing I’d expected.
Quit your job at Kristopher’s. I will give you the money needed to finish school. All of it. You won’t have to work at all.
I’d been completely perplexed. Why? I texted back.
It’s better we don’t see each other.
That was it. He didn’t respond to any of my questions after that. And so I was there, at his office, a slew of demanding questions in my pocket.
Was this what he did to all of his girls? Expel them from his world the second he was through with them? Was I just another one in the long line of females showing up at his office, pleading to speak to him? Or was I different?
Something changed in him over the weekend. I’d felt it Saturday night when I climbed on top of him in the dark. The way he’d touched me, the way he’d kissed me... that had been anything but a fuck.
And when we woke the next morning, things were different. He smiled more. Asked me more questions about myself. It gave me hope — hope that maybe something would come out of what had gone on between us.
It was all so unexpected, but also so welcome.
Because I was falling for him. I was falling for Niall Lambert harder than I’d ever fallen for any man. It was crazy, so quick, and with anything but the right person. What about his reputation? Servers quaked in their black loafers the second he walked through the doors of Kristopher’s. Horror stories abounded, claiming he made the hostesses cry just for the fun of it.
But what about everything else? What about the part of him that had come out over the weekend?
I pursed my lips. Niall felt at least a fraction of what I did. I’d seen it in the way he looked at me when he dropped me off at my apartment building the day before, felt it in the kiss he planted on my mouth before going.
So what was his game? Why was he pushing me away?
I peeked around the corner to get a view of his secretary’s desk. A man approached it, an envelope in his hand. He gave it to the woman and they said a few words before she stood and walked down the wide hallway. This was it. My chance.
As quickly and as quietly as I could, I dashed past her desk and towards Niall’s office. Without bothering to knock, I opened the door and let myself in.
The room sat empty. That was good. It would give me some more time to think about what I would say, since I hadn’t exactly prepared a speech. I softly closed the door and took a deep breath. The space was just as I would imagine Niall’s office to be: finely furnished, well organized, and immaculately clean.
There was a rustle behind me, and I jumped. A second later the door opened.
Niall stood there, staring at me with wide eyes.
I swallowed hard, not sure how to even begin. Now that I was there, the right words seemed to escape me.
“Why are you here?” he asked, stepping in and closing the door behind him. His attitude was already a far cry from the one I’d experienced the day before. Clearly, the secretary hadn’t been lying. Niall didn’t want to see me.
There were dark bags under his eyes, and a bit of his usually perfect hair was off, pushed to the side like he’d been pulling on it.
“I need to talk to you. Why are you telling me to quit my job? Why can’t you bear to see me anymore?”
He kept his gaze down as he walked around me to take a seat at his desk. “It sounds like you truly believe I owe you an answer.”
I blinked heavily. “It’s not about what’s owed, Niall.”
He flinched a little and kept his gaze down, shuffling through some papers on his desk like I was nothing more than an irritating fly.
I pushed on. “But I just have to know. We had a great weekend, and I don’t mean the sex. Tell me you don’t have feelings for me.”
I watched his face, saw his jaw tick. Slowly, he looked up, his cold eyes staring me down. “You knew the agreement for the weekend. You’re a good fuck, but it’s a stretch to think I’d fall in love with some sweet little pussy. And as for your job, it would dampen my appetite to walk into that restaurant and see your face.”
My mouth opened to ask the question burning on my tongue, but he said it for me.
“Why?” he sneered.” Because you’re a whore who sold her body just so she could keep her job. How’s that for an answer?”
My vision swam. I didn’t want to believe any of the words — couldn’t believe them. How could Niall himself actually believe anything he was saying? He was the one who propositioned me, the one who threatened to get me fired if I didn’t do as he said.
He stood, the chair violently scraping back on the hardwood floor. “I need to drop something off down the hall. You better not be here when I come back.”
“Niall,” I gasped.
He surged past me, keeping his distance as he left the room. The door slammed behind him.
The first sob racked my chest, escaping in a pathetic gurgle. Hot tears spilled down my cheeks, blurring my vision even further. No way could the man who just called me a whore have been the one I’d spent the best weekend of my life with. How could he have turned on such a dime?
I took in a shuddering breath, trying to calm myself. I couldn’t leave the office crying, couldn’t stand to be seen in that state. I had to get hold of myself. He would be back any minute, and I didn’t want to do it all again: the confrontation, the anger, the tears.
Niall Lambert really was as callous as they all said. Unfortunately, I’d been burned more than anyone else.
I took in another breath and stared at his desk, trying to fix my eyes on something solid in order to ground myself, to bring myself back down to reality. My gaze fell on a folder laying at the corner. The name written on the tab said Ander Williams.
Puzzled, I stepped towards it. The name was familiar and unusual enough that it could only belong to one person. Ander recently became a regular at Kristopher’s and happened to be one of the nicest men I knew. He was one of my favorite customers, always taking time to chat and ask me how my life was going.
Unable to resist myself, I flipped open the folder and scanned the first sheet in it. My eyes bugged out as key words popped out at me.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
Quickly, I shut the folder and set it back down the way I’d found it. The entire page had been notes on Ander, the margins filled in with ideas on how to bring him down, as the first scribble had said.
My jaw clenched. Would there ever be an end to Niall’s madness, his ability to inflict pain?
Not only was Ander a nice man, he did a considerable amount for the world. He was committed to philanthropy; his main interest being aiding single mothers. He’d told me several times about his own mom, who raised him all on her own by working two jobs.
I had to tell Ander about the little bit of information I’d gleaned. Had to get to him before Niall hired out Ander’s employees from under his nose — that was the plan underscored twice in the folder.
Spinning on my heel, I rushed out of the office, my own pain momentarily forgotten thanks to the need to help someone else.